This invention relates to performance monitoring of a waste-water reclamation system, and more particularly to monitoring the performance of a waste-water reclamation system in removing a known marker virus by injecting a known quantity of the marker virus upstream and detecting the presence of the virus downstream from the reclamation system.
In a closed environment system, such as exists in a spacecraft, it is necessary to recycle waste products to the maximum extent in order to fully utilize all the expendable products carried on board. Water is a particular commodity which must be recycled because of the space and weight required to carry large amounts. Waste-water for recycling is available from such sources as wash water, urine, and environmental humidity.
There are many systems well known in the prior art which can treat the above sources of waste water to remove the waste products and provide a recycled source of water. It is necessary, however, to monitor performance of any reclamation system in order to insure that the reclaimed water is indeed free of contamination and, in particular, free from pathogenic viruses which could contaminate the crew members.
Since the presence of a virus in the purification system output is potentially the most dangerous result of a system malfunction, it is desirable to monitor the output for the presence of a virus. The particular virus selected for monitoring must be such that it will survive any waste-water environment and be generally a worse-case virus with respect to the ability of the purification system to remove the virus. The system output is then monitored for the presence of the selected virus. It is desirable that the monitoring system be able to detect a very low level of failure in the purification system while retaining a high degree of simplicity and reliability.
It is an object of the present invention to detect the presence of a marker virus in reclaimed water.
It is yet another feature of the present invention to monitor the performance of a waste water reclamation system whereby early detection of any system malfunction is obtained.
It is yet another feature of the present invention to process the sample from the output of the purification system in a closed detection system to monitor system performance.
It is a feature of the present invention to detect the presence of a known virus in the output of a waste water reclamation system to ascertain the possible presence of pathogenic viruses in the output.
Still another feature of the present invention is a monitoring system capable of being incorporated in a spacecraft and retaining its efficacy over extended periods of time.